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French artist/director Enki Bilal is adapting his own work to the big screen, according to Joao Miguel Lameiras, who emailed the Comic Reel yesterday. Bilal has just completed “Immortel (Ad Vitam)” based on the Nikopol trilpgy published in the US by Humanoids. A trailer is available in French.

SMALLVILLE

Anticipation continues to build for the series’ upcoming event episode, “Asylum.” The WB has released images from that episode, and our dear friends at Kryptonsite are happy to share them with you.

SWAMP THING

UGO interviewed Len Wein about his history in comics and his involvement in the new Joel Silver-helmed feature film. “I have a first draft and doing some modifications now,” Wein said. “I’m expecting to hand it in soon. Then it goes to Warner Bros. and we’ll see what happens then.” The interview noted similarities between the concept and Marvel’s “Man-Thing,” which prompted a stream of fascinating reminiscense from Wein. “I was rooming with Gerry Conway who wrote the first Man-Thing story. It was just independent creation. We were doing Swamp Thing and Gerry and I think Gray Morrow was doing Man-Thing. Neither of us knew the other was doing the same thing. The weirdest aspect is that I actually wrote the second Man-Thing story; the whole ‘Whatever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing’s touch.’ In Gerry’s first story anything the Man-Thing touched burned. It was a protagonist who could never interact with anybody so I came up with the idea of fear.” As for the modern incarnations, Wein said of the current “Swamp Thing,” “It’s a horror movie. The new ‘Man-Thing’ movie sounds just like what the old ‘Swamp Thing’ was. I think it has a budget of $5 million. ‘Swamp Thing’ has a budget of way beyond that. When I had my first meeting with Joel the first thing he said was ‘No guy in a rubber suit.’ Swamp Thing will be all CGI.”

JUSTICE LEAGUE

Veteran actor Edward Asner (“Lou Grant”) will provide the voice for the Greek god Hephestus in an episode of the Cartoon Network animated series this season, according to Comics Continuum. Asner’s no stranger to voice work, playing crime boss Roland Daggett on “Batman: The Animated Series” and J. Jonah Jameson on one of the animated incarnations of “Spider-Man.”

BATMAN: INTIMIDATION

First of all, online sources seem to be switching from “Batman: Intimidation Game” to “Batman: Intimidation” in reference to the Chris Nolan-directed Bat film, so we’ll be following suit. Second, Latino Review has chased down the Icelandic company Saga Film for a plethora of details about the upcoming filming in the small Atlantic nation. Filming will take place in a town called Hofn, in the south eastern section of Iceland. The location “is said to be both green and icy,” and set construction has already begun. Filming starts in late February, will take two weeks, and forge right into March. The Location Manager is Finni Johannsson, and Latino Review also has a number of photos of the location available. Finally, a spy calling himself “Enigma” gave Superherohype some spoilerish exclusive information backing up the Iceland connection, including information that the Iceland locale will play host to Christian Bale’s Batman fighting “Ra’s Al Ghul’s #1 pupil” as a training exercise, that this film will serve as a bridge between the concepts of “Batman: Year One” and “Batman: Year Two.”

I HAVE TO TAKE THIS CALL

If you have the scoop on anything related to comic book movies, TV adaptations or just want to give us a truck full of cash, no questions asked, drop us a line and let’s coordinate. You can choose an alias if you’d like, or be mentioned by name — we honor requests for anonymity. Broadcasting live from Los Angeles, this is your humble scribe Hannibal Tabu saying thanks for your time and indulgence, and (insert pithy sign-off here, once it gets out of development hell).